Quote from NY0BScalper:
I don't think the fact that the corporate media disseminates propoganda to the masses to suit the agenda of the wealthy getting more from the middle-lower classes is really a conspiracy, more like a common sense conclusion based on fundamental principles of human social structures.
People operate out of the assumption that claiming that the government, the media, the markets, the legal system, the political system, etc are rigged and pervasively criminally manipulated requires proof. Without proof, we should assume all is well. It's actually the other way around - we should assume the above mentioned entities are completely corrupt, with the burden of proof being on them to prove that they are clean. The fact that most people don't think this way and are so naive shows how effectively the masses have been brainwashed.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, just a pragmatic independent thinker.
Well I operate on the assumption that everyone is always trying to maximize their interests. In some cases this means that fraud etc. takes place, while 99% of the time it means that:
a) Problems are ignored until they become extremely serious
b) People who are less smart, less careful, lacking in experience and information will be taken advantage of
That said, "criminally manipulated" is quite a charge and, for me, it does require proof. You obviously can't 'prove' that somebody isn't a criminal.
As an example, people on these forums take it for granted that economic data etc. is just manufactured to say whatever the government desires, usually based off of rumors, dubious internet sites and the like. Well, having known people who worked at e.g. BEA, BLS, JEC, I know for a fact that this isn't the case. These people are just ordinary civil servants who try to do their jobs as well as they can. Professional economists and statisticians might disagree about methodology, leading to periodic revisions in how the data is collected or processed, but there's not some massive conspiracy to keep people in the dark. If there is, why did the govt 'allow' jobs to fall in January?